Area thoroughbred industry thriving  but worried

The recent big win of a Pennsylvania-bred horse at a sister race of the Kentucky Derby shined a spotlight on the horse breeding and training industry in the state.

The 3-year-old Princess of Sylmar, owned by Ed Stanco of King of Prussia Stables, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Mike Smith, came from behind to win the $1 million Longines Kentucky Oaks on May 3 against 38-to-1 odds.

Another Pennsylvania-bred filly, So Many Ways, won the $177,000 Eight Belles Stakes, also held Kentucky Derby weekend at Churchill Downs. The 3-year-old filly is owned by Pennsylvania’s Maggi Moss and is trained by Tom Amoss.

“These two wins further solidify the growing clout of Pennsylvania breeding and underscore the positive impact the Race Horse Development Fund has had in Pennsylvania,” said Brian Sanfratello, president of the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, or PHBA, which is based in Kennett Square.

The fund sprang from Act 71, the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act of 2004, which legalized gaming and slots in Pennsylvania at casinos with horse racing tracks for the purpose of revitalizing the state’s horse racing and breeding industry.

Stanco once bred horses in New York, but moved his breeding operation to Pennsylvania largely because of Act 71.

Revenues from slot machines at the race track casinos go to fund incentives for Pennsylvania horse breeders and also to enhance purses at Pennsylvania’s eight thoroughbred and harness racing tracks. That makes racing horses in the state more lucrative for those who win, place and show, explained Pete Peterson, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Equine Coalition, which represents more than 10,000 horse owners and trainers in the state.

Meanwhile, a budget proposal by Gov. Tom Corbett would take $33 million from the Race Horse Development Fund and put it to other uses, according to Jeb Hannum, PHBA executive secretary.

It has been the governor’s avowed goal since he took office in 2011.

Currently, the breeding fund receives 12 percent of annual gross terminal revenues from slots, Hannum said. Of that, 80 percent goes to beef up Pennsylvania track purses, and 12 percent goes directly to the breeding fund, amounting to $16 million to $18 million a year.

Corbett wants to redirect that money for other purposes, including the general fund and agricultural programs.

The Pennsylvania House has passed a budget that would reduce the $33 million that Corbett wants pulled from the horse-racing program to $18 million. The Senate has yet to act on the budget.

“We hope to reduce that to zero,” Peterson said.

Added Hannum, “Our position is that you can’t pull out money arbitrarily. When you raid the fund like this, it undermines the program.”

The industry also receives 1 percent of all funds bet on thoroughbreds in the state (colloquially called “the handle”), a funding source that is not presently in jeopardy.

Slot revenues have taken a battering from the poor economy and also from other nearby states, Ohio and New York among them, where slots are now legal. In May, Pennsylvania slot revenues fell $15 million from the same month a year ago.

Nothing happens quickly in the horse breeding industry. The lead time to produce a racehorse is at least three years – a year for the mare to gestate, a year and a half for the foal to grow and mature, and at least a year to train, said Hannum, grandson of the late Nancy Hannum, once a doyenne of the Chester County horse and fox-hunting world.

Horse breeding, training and owning are big businesses in Pennsylvania. Statistics show that Pennsylvania provides 5.2 percent of the 37,000 foals born in the United States each year, tied for fifth with New York, after Kentucky (32.7 percent), Florida (9.2 percent), Louisiana (8.6 percent) and California (8.2 percent).

Nationwide, the industry produces $34 billion in annual revenues and 470,000 jobs, from those on farms and training centers to racetracks. Peterson called horses “mini-factories,” providing jobs for trainers, groomers, exercisers, blacksmiths, veterinarians, jockeys and farmers, among others. A side benefit to the industry is that it preserves open space that might otherwise be gobbled up and built upon.

The ascendancy of Pennsylvania as a breeding and training ground for thoroughbred racehorses gained credence in 2004, when Smarty Jones, owned by Roy and Pat Chapman of Fairthorne Farm in Chester County and trained by John Servis, won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. The horse came in second in the Belmont Stakes, dashing hopes for a homegrown Triple Crown winner. Affinity was the last horse to win horse racing’s Triple Crown, in 1978.

Chester County is the epicenter for the industry in Pennsylvania, with Lancaster County a distant second, according to Hannum, a timber racer and fox hunter in his own right.

Well-known farms in the county include Derry Meeting Farm in Cochranville, owned by Bettina Jenney; Walnut Green in West Grove, owned by Mark Reid; Brushwood Stable in Malvern, owned by Betty Moran; and Charlton Bloodstock Agency in Cochranville, owned by Rick and Dixie Abbott.

George Strawbridge, of Strawbridge and Clothier department store fame, is also a leading breeder in Chester County. He boards his mares at Derry Meeting.